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them white pyramidal prickles, which remain about five or fix weeks, and then fall off. The back is of a blackifh blue, avid the belly white, with a faint caft of red. It never grows to more than five or fix pound weight : the flefh is well tafted. It is found in the lakes in the northern nations. IViilughby's Hift. Pifc. p. 247. Rondelet de Pifc p. 64.
PIISSKER, in zoology, the name of a fifh of the mujiela kind, ufually called the mujlek fojfilis, or pi/is fofltfis, the foffile fifh.
This fifli is ufually found of a hand's breadth long, and as} thick as one's finger ; but they grow fometimes to be much: longer. The back is of a grey colour, fpotted with a great ] numherof fpots, and tranf erfe breaks, partly black and partly ; blue. The belly is yellow, and is fpotted with red and white ! and black ; the white ones are the larger, and the others look - as if made with the point of a needle -, and there is on each of the fides a longitudinal black and white line. There are cer- | tain fleftiy excrefcences at the mouth, which in fwimmingl they expand ; and when out of the water, they contradt them.
They run into caverns in the earth, in the fides of rivers, in marfliy places, and penetrate a great way, and are frequently dug up at diftances from waters; and often, when the waters of brooks and rivers fwcll beyond their banks, and they are again covered by them, they make their way out of the earth into the water, and when it deferts them, are left in vaft numbers upon the ground, when they are eaten by the fwine.
This fecms very much of the kind of the fi/gmrt fifh, and pof- fibly is no other than the fame fpec'ies ; and poffibly alfo the pTcilia of Schonefeldt is the fame. Gefnerde Aquat.
PIKE, in ichthyology, a name given by us to the fifh called by authors the lucius and efox y and by the old Greek writers exyryncbuY, See Lucius and Es^x.
This fifli is the tyrant of the frefh waters, and is at once the moft voracious and the longeft; lived of all fifli, according to the generality of naturalifTs.
The very large pike are cftccmcd as a pompous fifli at the tables of great people; but they are coarfe, and the middling ones are in reality much the beft.
1'he pike never fwims in fhoals, as moft other fifh do, but always lies alone, and is fo bold and ravenous, that he will feize upon almoft any thing Itfs than himfclf. This fifli breeds but once in a year, which is in March. It is found in almoft all frefh waters, but is very different in goodnefs, according to the nature of the places where it lives. The fined pike are tbofe which feed in clear rivers ; thofe in ponds and meres are inferior to thefe, and the worft of all are thofe of the fen ditches. They are very plentiful in thefe laft places, where the water is foul and coloured, and their food, fuch as frogs and the like, very plentiful, but very coarfe ; fo that they grow large, but are yePowifli and high-bellied, and differ greatly from thofe which live in the clearer waters. The fiflicrmen have two principal ways of catching the pike ; by the ledger, and by the walking-bait.
The ledger-bait is fixed in one certain place, and may conti- nue while the angler is abfent: this muft be a live bait, a fifh or frog ; and among fifli, the dace, roa h, and gudgeon, are the beft: of frogs, the only caution is to chufc the largeff and the yelloweft that can be met with. If the bait he a fifli, the hook is to be ftuck thro' the upper lip, and the line muft be fourteen yards at leaft in length : the other end of thts is to be tied to a bough of a tree, or to a fti-ck driven into the ground near the pike's haunt, and all the line wound round a forked ftick, except about half a yard. The bait will by this means keep playing fo much under water, and the pike will foon lay hold of it.
If the bait be a frog then the arming wire of the hook fbould be put in at the mouth, and out at the fide ; and with a needle and fomc ftiong filk the hinder leg of one fide is to be faftened by one ft itch to the wire-arming of the hook. The pike will foon feize this, and muft have line enough to give him leave to get to his haunt and poach the bait.
The trolling for pike is a pleafant method alfo of taking them : in this a dead bait ferves, and none is lb proper as a gudgeon This is to be pulled about in the water till the pike fcizes it, and then it is to have line enough, and time to fwallow it : the hook is final! for this fport, and has a fmooth piece of lead fixed at its end to fink the bait ; and the line is very long, and runs through a ring at the end of the rod, which muft not be ■too flender at top.
The 'felt of feeding pike, fo as to make them very fat, is the giving them eels, and without this it is not to be done under a very long time ; otherwife perch, while fmall, and their prickly, tender fins, are the beft food for them. Bream put into a pike-\\om\ are a very proper food : they wil breed freely, and their young ones make excellent food for the pike, who will take care that they fhall not increafe over much. The numerous fboals of roaches and rod*; which are continually changing place, and often in Roods get into the pike's quar- ters, are food for them for a lon<r time.
Pike, when ufed to be fed by hand, will come up to the very fliore, and take the foad that is given them out of the fingers of the feeder. It is wonderful to fee with what cou-
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rage they will do this, after a while pra&ifirig; and It is a very diverting fight when there are feveral of them nearly of the fame fize, to fee what ftriving and fighting there will be for the beft bits, when they are thrown in. The moft convenient place is near the mouth of the pond, and where there is about half a yard depth of water ; for, by that means, the ofFal of the feedings will all lie in one place, and the deep water will ferve for a place to retire into and reft in, and will be always clean and in order.
Carp will be fed in the fame manner as pike ; and tbo' by na- ture a fifli as remarkably fhy and timorous as the pike is bold and fearlefs, yet by cuftom they will come up to take their food out of the perfon's hand; and will, like the pik,; quarrel among one another for the niceft bits. See the article Feeding of fifli.
Half Fikv, in the military art, is the weapon carried by an offi- cer of foot. It differs from a pike; becaufe it is but eight or nine foot long, and the fpear is fmaller and narrower.
Pike, is alfo the name of an ./Egyptian meafurc, of which there are two kinds, the large and the fmall.
The larger pih, called alfo the pike of Conftantinople, is 2/.f4-°-o.Eng1ifli inches. They meafure all foreign goods with this, excepting only fuch as are made of flax and cotton : for thefe they ufe the fmall pike, called pike belledy, or the pike of the country ; becaufe they meafure with it all the manufactures of the country. This pike confifts of about 2^4.14^ EncHifh inches. Pocock's ./Egypt, p 175.
PILA (Cyc!.)—Pn.A marina, the fea-ball, in natural hiftory, the name of a fubftance very common on the fhores of the Mediterranean, and in fume other places. It is ufually found in form of a ball, about the fize of the balls of horfe-duno-, and compofed of a multitude of fibrillar, irregularly compli- cated.
Its origin has been very varioufly gueffed at by different au- thors. John Bauhine fays, that it confifts of fmall hairy fibres and ftraws, fuch as are found about the (ea-plaht called alga •vitriarirum; but he does not pretend to afcertain what plant it owes its origin to. Impcratus judged it to confift of the exuviae both of vegetable and animal bodies. Mercatus doubts whether it be a congeries of the fibnll'se of plants, wound up into a ball by the motion of the fea-water; or whether it be not the workmanfhip of fome fort of beetle living about the fea-fhore, and analogous to our common dung-beetles ball, which it elaborates from dung for the reception of its progeny. Schreckius will have it compofed of the filaments of fome plant of the reed kind : and Welchius fuppofes it compofed of the pappofe part of the flowers of the reed. Maurice Hoffman thinks it the excrement of the hippopotamus : and others think it that of the phoca, or fea-calf.
Hut Klein, who had thoroughly examined as well the bodies themfelves, as what authors had conjectured concerning them, is of opinion, that they are wholly owing to, and entirely compofed of, the capillaments which the leaves growing to the woody ftalk of the alga •mtfiariorum have, when they wither and decay. Thefe leaves, in their natural ftate, are about the thicknefs of a wheat ftraw, and they are placed fo thick about the tops and extremities of the (talks, that they enfold, em- brace, and lie over one another ; and from the middle of thefe clufters of leaves, and, indeed, from the woody fubftance of the plant itfelf, there arife feveral other very long, flat, fmooth, and brittle leaves : thefe are ufually four from each tuft of the other leaves, and they have ever a common vagina, which is membranaceous and very thin. This is the ftyle of the plant, and the pi/a marina feems a clufter of the fibres of the leaves of this plant, which cover the whole ftalk divided into their conftituent fibres ; and by the motion of the waves, firfr. broken and worn into fnort fhreds, and afterwards wound up together into a roundifh or longifh ball. Klein, de Tubul. Marin, p. 22.
PILARIS, or Pilaris turdus, in zoology, the name by which authors in general call the field-fare. See the article Fieldfare.
PILATIO, a word ufed by the antients to exprefs a minute fif- fure in the cranium, when not larger than a fingle hair of the head.
ITLATRO, orPiLATRO di Levante, a fait ufed in the glafs trade in fome particular cafes. It 'is extra&ed from the froth of the fea, coagulated by heat in the hot countries. Merrefs Notes on Neri. p. ^49.
PILCHARDUS, the common pilchard, in zoology, a fifh much approaching to the nature of the common herring, but fmaller and differing in feveral other particulars.
The diftinguifhing characters of !t are thefe : it never exceeds fix or feven inches in length : its body is thicker in proportion than that of the herring, and its bel'y lefs fharp:" its fcales are very large, round, and very thin: its back is of a bluifti green, and its belly white; and near the upper angle of the gills, it has a black fpot on each fide ; fometimes alfo there are four or five other fmaller in a ftrait line behind thefe : the head is flatted, and the mourh large ; but it has no teeth, nei- ther in the jaws nor palate.
It is generally found fwrmming in vaft fhoals, and is caught on many parts of the Englifli fhores. Its flefh is better tafted than that of the herring.
PILE,
